


Darkest Before Dawn

by fightfil



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Except it's more like no-holds-barred MMA, Gen, Graphic descriptions of graphic injuries, Panic Attacks, Paris (City), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tags May Change, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 09:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17261906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightfil/pseuds/fightfil
Summary: Paris, 1941: Yang's search for her mother has left her and Qrow stranded in France as the Nazi Armies establish their occupation. What started as a glorified party tour of Mainland Europe with sides of boxing and investigations to find Raven quickly transformed into something with much higher stakes. Yang has to keep her identity safe as she fights in the quasi-legal tournaments that entertain so many Nazi officers, hoping for some way to get back to her home in Patch-On-Tyne, England.Her next opponent? Mercury Black.





	1. Chapter 1

Every punch was met and countered, every kick blocked. Every time Yang thought she might have gotten any slight advantage over her opponent, a quick step left her striking open air, letting her over-extend and lose her balance slightly. She’d have to step away to gather herself, losing whatever momentum she’d gained. Then, seeing an opening, a guard just a few inches lower than it should have been, she moved to exploit it. She threw out a fist in a low feint, followed by a high kick in order to break open his guard even further. Another feint, followed by her favorite move: the left-handed haymaker.

Instead of receiving a satisfying connection with her adversary’s jaw, she felt his hand wrap around her wrist, pulling her forward into his rising knee. The blow pushed the air from her lungs and left her frozen, wheezing. Next came a sidekick that sent her stumbling into the ropes. It was all she could do to use one arm to keep herself up while weakly deflecting the flurry of blows that followed the initial attack, moments later.

In five rounds, neither had managed to connect with the other, and until now, the sixth had been going the same way. Her tired defense now let several blows through, bruises and cuts blossoming on her face. She felt a crack as another kick slammed into the side of her chest, the pain finally overflowing her adrenaline-strengthened tolerance. Darkness began inching across her vision, filling in from the edges. Her grip on the rope began to loosen.

The peal of a gong stopped his onslaught, “Round six, over!” A medic rushed onto the ring as the PA system crackled to life. “A take-down point has been awarded to Mercury Black! The score stands at one point for Black and no point for the Dragon! Round Seven will start in ten minutes. An official stepped into the ring, facing Yang. “Would you like to forfeit the match?” His voice feigned concern, as he grabbed her chin, holding her face still as he shined a flashlight into each of her eyes. “If you do, you can receive extended medical treatment immediately, otherwise you’ll need to wait until the bout is completely over before you can have more than the 10 minutes of recovery between rounds.” Yang glared at him in answer, vision more than a little hazy with pain.

“Go to hell. I’m _not_ giving up this easy.” Rolling to her hands and knees, Yang used the ropes to pull herself standing and stepped over them, where she was met by her manager, Qrow, standing ready in a wool overcoat despite the stifling inside air. He offered support with one hand, and with the other, a bottle of clear liquid.

“Vodka,” he said, simply. Yang nodded and took a swig, letting its sharp warmth clear her head and dull some of the pain in her side. By the time they reached the locker, she was walking fully under her own power. Wordlessly, she sat on the table set in the middle of the damp, concrete room and Qrow set to work cleaning the cuts on her face and re-wrapping the bandages around her wrists and ankles. More than half of their ten minutes passed this way, without a sound except for an intermittent sharp inhale of breath when Qrow pressed too hard on a wound.

After her injuries were tended to and the wraps re-adjusted, the pair got to their feet to head back to the ring and Yang broke the heavy silence. “How am I gonna hit him?”

“Let him dictate the fight,” Qrow answered. “Don’t make it a battle for advantage, since he can take any momentum you earn and turn it on its head. You’re tougher than he is, though. Let yourself get socked if it means you can get a blow in, just as hard. Let him feel like he’s on top the entire time. Eventually he’ll make mistakes and if he makes one big enough, you need to be able to capitalize and go in for the knockout.” He smiled at the young woman, proud of his advice for her. “You got this, kid.”

Yang most assuredly did not feel his confidence. _< Sure,>_ she thought. _< I can take_ a _hit. That’s why I’m not lying on the mat in the ring, recovering from being knocked out cold. But I can’t take more punishment than him_ anymore _. >_ Despite her misgivings, however, she slipped into her easy bravado. “’Course I got this. I don’t lose fights with you to watch over me.” As she spoke the words, she felt herself begin to believe in them. “If I let him tire himself out hitting my ‘guns’,” she said, smiling at her joke and the memory of Ruby lauding her muscles at Passover, the last time she was home. “One good whack upside the head should do him in.” Gracing her uncle with a wide, toothy, grin, she skipped out into the lights.

As soon as she emerged from the shadows, into view, the public address speakers crackled to life. A stream of rapid French that Yang definitely didn’t have the extra energy to comprehend was met with widespread cheers and applause before the English announcer repeated, “In just a moment, your champion, Mercury Black will fight his seventh round against the challenger, The Dragon of Patch-on-Tyne!” She hated her fighting name, but it was the best way to get support for a half-Asian woman boxing as a man. Tying their support to the location of her home was her best chance to secure their loyalty when she revealed who she really was, Qrow always said.

When she stepped over the ropes into the ring, she nodded to the referee. Then she shook hands—for the seventh time today—with Mercury and stepped back into a relaxed ready stance. The gong started the round and the two silently circled each other. Yang was happy that they’d run out of trash to talk in the first two rounds, she talked enough during the day and enjoyed the silent catharsis of beating the stuffing out of someone in a fair fight.

After a few moments of circling, the feints began, each of them watching for a drop in the others’ reaction time—any new weakness to exploit. For the seventh time tonight, she could feel the thick tension rise, palpable enough to cut with a knife. Yang had long since become numb to the noise of the crowd, only really intellectually aware that they were present at all; but soon she could hear the chant, small but passionate. “Drag-on! Drag-on! Drag-on!”

No more than a tenth of the crowd could have been chanting it, but Yang feasted on the energy of it. Once Mercury began committing to his punches, she looked to focus more on those aimed where she felt she _could_ take a hit, giving him more and more incentive to break through her guard there. She met punches with blocks, feints with counter-attacks, but never tried to push to drive home any advantage, staying on the defensive, fighting safer than she ever had before.

Soon, she could feel the slightest bit of complacency settling in for her opponent. His attacks were more straight-forward, focused on the areas she was goading him to target. Still there was power behind these blows; failing to stop them would _hurt_. He threw his entire weight behind a punch to her sternum—Yang tried to sidestep it. But, after six full ten minute rounds of fighting, she’d lost a good portion of her speed and, unable to completely dodge the blow, Mercury’s fist slammed into her shoulder, head-on.

Pain blossomed around the impact, skin purpling rapidly. Instead of recoiling—stepping further into her defense—however, she roared into an attack of her own. He’d committed too much to his attack, and he was only just able to meet her spinning kick with a two-armed block inches from his temple. Then he skipped back from a feinted uppercut only to receive a grazing right hook that bounced off his cheekbone, leaving torn skin oozing blood down the side of his face. Next, Yang swept low with an outstretched leg, tripping him. His hands hit the mat hard before he bounced to his feet, a swift front kick forcing Yang to jump back—on the defensive again.

Mercury had gotten much more out of the exchange and the power behind his strikes rose with his confidence. Yang’s further retreat into her defensive stance perceived as weakness, he was gunning for a finishing blow. Soon a kick got through Yang’s defenses, slamming into her ribcage and knocking her backwards. Braced for impact, however, she was able to avoid getting the air knocked out of her and was kept up her guard. Her opponent jumped forward, swinging a powerful roundhouse kick at her head. Her right hand, quick as lightning, shot up, catching the leg as it flew in.

With fingers vice-gripped around his ankle—mirroring the ending of the previous round—she pulled him close. She let go of his leg, instead catching him by the shoulders. Her smile, uncannily wide, was almost maniacal. Her lips moved. The sound pushed out was so quiet that even Mercury probably couldn’t quite make out the words. “Good night.”

She jerked her head down, moving forwards as well. Blood sprayed the mat beneath them as the bridge of her opponent’s nose cracked under the force of her brow slamming into it. He stumbled backward, clutching his face. “I forfeit! I forfeit, I forfeit, I forfeit. I’m done, you win.” His voice faded quickly into a groan after the first shout.

Yang turned to face the crowd as the gong rang again and “The Dragon of Patch-on-Tyne” was announced as the winner by submission and forfeit. Then, as the cheers gained momentum, Yang saw a shadow move, a glint of steel from the corner of her eye. She turned. She turned and shoved her assailant away. Away, over the ropes and into a stanchion. Into the stanchion, slamming against it. Slamming against it with a sickening crunch.

Mercury lay on the ground outside the ring, by the wall, moaning. His leg was bent in two places, with blood pooling beneath him where a sliver of ivory-white bone broke the skin.

No one was cheering now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yang must deal with the fallout of her actions after her bout with Mercury in Nazi-occupied France.
> 
> [Content Warnings For:] Panic Attacks, PTSD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd hoped to get this out a week after the first chapter, but I was busy at work and tired when I got home, so I didn't get to write as much as I hoped. But Saturday night was really productive for me, so it's only 10 days or so between chapters, woo!

The sudden silence was just as overwhelming as the deafening din of raucous celebration that it replaced. Ten thousand pairs of eyes looked on, in horror, at the sudden return to violence. Ten thousand mouths couldn’t find anything to say in response. Too stunned even for boos at this extracurricular outburst, all this audience, ten thousand strong, could do was watch, waiting for anything to break their reverie. Yang, too, was frozen under the gazes of the crowd, waiting for something to happen, for anyone to come take her out of here. To get her somewhere safe.

The crowd, beginning to recover, broke their silence with isolated calls: “He’s a monster!” “Someone get him!” Yang spun in place, trying to comprehend. There was no need to _get_ Mercury. He wasn’t moving. She’d subdued the threat. But the shouting only grew in intensity. The official who’d, moments ago, declared her victory was nowhere to be found. Instead, several security guards, normally focused on keeping audience members away from the ring, had turned and were approaching _her_. Her pupils grew large in her eyes, flitting between the guards, as she continued to spin. They were coming in on all sides—there was no gap between them, large enough to could get through before the guards could close it.

No one else had seen that glint, she realized. No one else had noticed that Mercury was going to knife her. She looked back at his broken body, searching for any sign of the weapon he’d held. But before her gaze could do more than see the horrifying extent of his injured form, one of the approaching guards took a position that impeded her view.

Yang braced for a fight, not the first time she’d had to punch her way out of an arena. Sometimes, the crowds wouldn’t take kindly to their favorite being beaten down by someone like her—even not knowing that she was ‘only a girl’. Her eyes marked her as “other” even if her blonde hair and fair complexion allowed her to blend in when the spotlights weren’t trained on her face.

“You don’t understand!” She yelled, her voice squeaking a little. “He had a knife!” It sounded almost like whining, and she knew that none of the guards would listen. The adrenaline from her fight had all but vanished, however, leaving her a husk of her peak self. Yang felt every scrape, bruise, and abrasion from the bout. She was going to have quite a colorful assortment in the morning, she realized. She felt her heels taking root in the mat beneath her, resisting her reflex to rise to the balls of her feet, exhaustion coming fast, up from the bottom of her soles, drowning her in a malaise.

Nonetheless, when the first guard came within reach, her punch rang true. Security guards aren’t boxers, trained to absorb hits so that they can keep fighting through blows that might otherwise shatter bone. The guard crumpled, the right hook taking him in the chin. She spun to the next one, approaching from behind, just in time to sidestep his attempted tackle. However, her dodge took her within arm’s reach of a third, who used the opportunity to wrap her in a bear hug.

Planting her feet hard, into the mat, Yang dropped her center of gravity as quickly as she could, lurching forward with all her weight. The guard wasn’t ready for this quick reaction and the pair toppled forward, rolling. With her weight directly on top of him, Yang twisted to the side, freeing herself from his grip. Winded, he began to push himself to his feet, and she kicked out, sweeping his legs. These maneuvers, however, had put Yang on her back, never a place one wants to be when fighting for her freedom.

The guards quickly closed in on her and Yang balled up, using her legs’ momentum to pivot on her shoulder-blades. She lashed out with kicks—keeping her hands back to protect her core—using the threat of a savage blow to their kneecaps to keep the guards at bay. But she was tiring quickly, her defenses losing strategy, beginning to more closely resemble a feral animal’s desperation. The guards closed in together, using a coordinated approach to move closer when Yang’s back was turned, taking advantage of her shifting attentions and their greater numbers.

Then one of the them threw caution to the wind, and leapt forward, sprawling on top of her, trapping Yang underneath his weight. The fight still hadn’t left her, but there was no longer much force behind her movements. The lack of leverage, compounding on her ever increasing exhaustion, had finally surpassed her determination—sheer stubbornness really—and her flagging energy allowed the guards to handcuff her and throw her into a fireman’s carry, ‘escorting’ her out of the building.

* * *

The booking process took more than an hour, once Yang had reached the Gestapo office, with not just simple photographs and fingerprinting, but detailed—and invasive—measurements of just about every part of her body. The careful illusion of maleness that she’d built and perpetuated for more than a year of boxing fell apart almost instantly the moment she was arrested. _That_ would be front-page headlines tomorrow. “Dyke Fighter Arrested for Mauling Opponent,” or something.

She’d fought with every ounce of effort that she had, and that reflected her booking. She was being charged with the aggravated assault of not just Mercury, but each of the security guards she’d faced off against before finally succumbing. In hindsight, fighting the guards had been foolish, Yang realized. With her apprehension inevitable, all she managed was to make everything worse for herself. But she was allowed no real respite to wallow in her mistakes. After the thorough physical examination, the officers had started a rapid-fire interrogation.

Yang sat in silence as the questions started. “Why did you attack Mr. Black?” “How long have you been boxing?” “When did you arrive in Paris?” “Why didn’t you evacuate during the invasion?”

The officer endured her silence, barely waiting for her to change her mind and start talking between each successive question while Yang tried to lean back in her chair—a difficult feat with her hands cuffed in front of her on the table—and look comfortable. A police interrogation was also not foreign to her.

But even the rough-and-tumble constables in East Croydon were all kittens and rainbows when compared to the Nazi’s secret police—scourge of the downtrodden and the different. And Yang was being eased in to their methods. When the first officer had tired of spouting off question after question, he stepped out. Letting Yang stew for only a few moments, the next officer quickly replaced him. He nestled into the chair across from her and spoke, softly and with barely-accented English. “Listen, Miss Xiao Long. You are in quite a lot of trouble, which will only get worse if you don’t answer our questions.”

Yang smiled at him, her expression doubtful. “Hrmph.” She wasn’t particularly impressed by his tactics. The good-cop routine was never more than skin-deep; just about the least convincing—

“If you don’t start talking—start answering us quickly and honestly—in five minutes, I will have you taken outside and shot.” The officer’s tone was still light, as if that was the logical followup to his opening statement. “You see, we can have little patience for those who undermine the public order here. There _is_ a war going on, even if you did not deign to leave when it came to your doorstep. You were seen to have brutally assaulted not just your opponent after you’ve won, but multiple security staff before they could even ask you about it. That cannot be let to stand, you see.

“Now, you will answer. Why are you in France?”

“To—to box,” Yang answered, too stunned by the straightforward way the man talked about her summary execution to resist. She did, at least, still have the presence of mind to catch herself before she started rambling.

“I see. And while you could box anywhere, including your home country, in England, why did you choose to box in France?”

“I wanted to travel.”

“To a nation that was about to be invaded? Just about everyone could see the writing on the wall by last autumn, when your papers say you’ve arrived.”

“Well…” Yang faltered. She and Qrow had known the war was coming when they started. That was why they _had_ to come. This was their last chance to find her before the shooting started, to convince her to…

The officer saw her expression and changed tactics. “Even pretending that I believe that paltry excuse, that cannot explain why you are still here. You’d been boxing for months when the fighting started, and you had still more time to leave before the surrender. Why didn’t you?”

“We couldn’t.” Yang had this answer ready, at least. Reporters asked for it every chance they got. “Me and my manager, I mean. We’d borrowed heavily to schedule the trip, and since I didn’t start winning more than a third of the bouts until early April, we were nearly out of money. We just couldn’t afford a ticket out until the Army drove through and closed the ports.”

“Surely that wasn’t the only reason. You could have just borrowed more. It’s not like the French would have been in much position to collect on that debt for years. You must have had friends or family who would have covered your return fares to keep you safe.”

Yang clammed up. She wasn’t really sure _why_ she wouldn’t tell them about her Mom. It’s not like she could put her in any danger by doing so. She already was a wanted criminal, both here, and back home. And Yang still really had no idea where to find her, so she couldn’t betray her location to the Gestapo anyways. But the mission to find her was one she was keeping secret. From Ruby, from Tai, and most fundamentally, from the authorities.

“We tried to reach out to my family. But they were on a ship to America,” Yang lied. This wasn’t part of her story, but she had to say something to get him off this line of questioning. “They were afraid of the bombings coming up through the countryside.”

“And that,” he said. “Gets us back to the original question.” He smiled, his trap complete. “Your family saw the dangers of war. They were so worried about it to evacuate _their_ home. So why,” He rapped the table with his knuckles for each word. “Did you decide to go _closer_ to the war, to ‘box’?” His tone when he said the last was corrosive.

Shrinking under his gaze, Yang remained silent.

“I will remind you that I can afford no patience with non-compliance. Paris is riddled with crime, and I have a responsibility to fight it. Which I cannot do asking pointless questions to someone unwilling to answer them. So, speak!”

“Tofindmymum,” Yang murmured, capitulating.

“To what?”

“To find my birth mother,” she said, a little more forcefully.

“And why would she need finding?”

“She left my Dad before I could remember.”

“Why would you care so much to find her in the face of war?”

“She’s my Mom! I had to try! This was my best chance to, before the fighting broke out.”

“And when it became inevitable that it would, was money the only reason you stayed?”

Yang caught herself again. She was spiralling again. As she always did when talking about her. She couldn’t get the images out of her mind. The wolf and Ruby. Qrow and his gun. The train, the robber, and her face. “No,” she croaked.

It all spilled out. The Branwen gang. The promise, “Once,” and the Belfast IRA. The detective’s questions got animated, coaxing every detail out. By the end, Yang was a mess. Tears had streaked down her face, leaving great stripes in the make-up she still wore to sell her illusion. She was slumped down over the table, exhaustion too great to even look at her questioner.

Then he left, replaced almost immediately with another officer. On and on the questions went. As the clock ticked ever forward, the Gestapo officers extracted every bit of information they could out of Yang. Each one pulled still more from Yang’s lifeforce, it seemed. After each question, she looked more despondent, more drained. By the fourth officer, they’d released her from the table, instead cuffed in the corner. When the last finally finished, she’d curled into a ball, every drop of fight gone from her will.

Yang _might_ have fallen asleep as the night passed by in that dark, windowless, room. The passage of time was interminable, without any natural light to help. Hours later, though not as many as she’d hoped, the door opened again. Several officers came in, undid her manacles and escorted her out of the room before chaining her hands in front of her. Two guards stood at her flanks, with vice-like grips on her shoulders, pushing her behind a third, who was leading her along a maze of corridors. Even at her best, Yang’d have trouble mapping their movements in her head, and now, drained, sore, and nearly sleepless, she had no chance. She could barely keep herself upright, instead relying on the support of the guards that were escorting her to keep her on her feet. They were almost dragging her before long.

After what seemed like the millionth turn, they led her out a door, into a alleyway parking lot. The crisp morning air smelled wonderful to her, despite the distinct tinge of sewage that permeated it. After a night in the staleness of that claustrophobic interrogation room, the freeness of the open air was a blessing. A nondescript black van was idling there, waiting for them, and she was roughly pushed inside. Keeping her wrists cuffed together, they wordlessly pushed Yang to the center of the truck bed, where a doctor’s examination table resided. She fell, limply, onto it without much force. With deft movements, the trio of guards quickly swapped her chains for the straps that affixed her limbs to its surface.

After tying her down, two of the guards exited out the back of the van, with the third closing up behind them. The internals of windowless chamber in the back of the van were pitch black, descending into the same stillness as the interrogation room. Yang wasn’t sure she could breathe. The weight over her lungs, imaginary though it was, blurred her vision, especially on the periphery. It blunted the rattling of the van over cobbled streets whose roughness the exam table’s upholstery was woefully inadequate to cushion against. What Yang’s panicked brain could not do was compress the excruciating minutes she spent, immobilized, imagining each and every one of the horrors that might await her when the vehicle arrived wherever they were taking her.

Yang had heard rumors of what happened at Hitler’s “Labor Camps,” and did her very level best to not imagine herself stripped and gassed, or forced to work to exhaustion as she slowly starved, or made the bedfellow of some lecherous Nazi pervert who thought that “subhuman” vagina was some sort of exotic taboo or something. She tried to focus on happier things, like the possibility of being summarily executed by firing squad, or being stuck in some dingy cell and forgotten, Okay. Well, her attempts to valiantly think happy thoughts were mostly unsuccessful.

After an eternity, the van, which Yang eventually realized was probably a stripped down ambulance, finally pulled to a stop and killed its engine. Only seconds after stopping the van, the doors opened to reveal the blinding afternoon sun illuminating an enormous brick building. When her bindings were released, the guards did not move to handcuff her. Her stiffness from so many hours of near immobility kept her from moving quickly, but once she hobbled to the exit of the van, Yang saw why there was no need for further restraints.

Their destination was in the center of what looked like a Nazi military complex. In the distance, an immense perimeter wall surrounded them with twenty feet of concrete, steel, and barbed wire. The wall was liberally adorned with guardposts, erupting from the joints in the wall to heights of more than a hundred feet. While the parking lots held a smattering of personal automobiles, far more common were armored trucks with mounted swivel-guns, always manned and watchful.

Yang could only stare in befuddled terror for a moment, before a guard commanded, “ _Bewegst_!” <Move!> and pushed Yang towards the entrance to the nearby building. Seeing the obvious futility of resisting the order, she stepped out ahead of her guard escort, making a show of her compliance. The palatial entrance hall smelled of disinfectant, Yang noticed, as she was guided through, and as she walked down each hallway, she was reminded, more and more strongly, of the hospital she’d spent so long in when her step-mother had died.

After climbing a few flights of stairs, Yang had begun to feel even more ill at ease. Besides the straightforward terror she was feeling about being in the custody of the German secret police, the building was eerily empty, especially considering the military bustle just outside. She hadn’t seen a single person in the halls, besides her escort, not even at locations that looked, pretty clearly, like they were meant to be permanently staffed by receptionists or secretaries.

The guards redirected her into a room off of a smaller corridor. If it weren’t for the unsettling emptiness of the whole building Yang could have almost thought of the room as a regular doctor’s office, complete with posters (in German, of course) detailing symptoms of some rarer diseases. Above all of them resided another, more sinister, poster that made sure she’d not forget that this wasn’t St. Anthony's. Yang’s German could use some work, but her translation was threatening enough: “Death is the Best Mercy the Incurable can Give”

Apparently, the doctors at empty military hospitals were no more prompt than your common neighborhood GP, and Yang’s day of interminable waiting staged true to its nature as the office’s clock ticked away the seconds. Fidgeting was finally possible, however, now that she was no longer chained up or tied down. It took six steps to circuit the room, she learned, after widening her stride as far as comfortable. Two of the guards had not entered the office, opting to leave her under the watchful eye of the last while they, presumably, stood watch in the hall. The remaining guard watched her with a bemused expression, neither tense nor relaxed. He was leaning against the door, with a body language that could be best described as begging for Yang to try to fight her way through him.

With the freedom to walk restored, the extended panic attack from earlier had subsided, and the exhausted apathy of the previous night had been replaced by a slow, simmering, rage. Yang was sorely tempted to try and wipe the smirk from her captor’s face and make a break for it. Even tight and sore from the fight last night and the hours of near-immobility, she bet she could hit hard enough to get through him before it became an extended brawl. The other two would be harder, she knew.. Multi-opponent fighting requires agility and reflexes that she wouldn’t have without real rest _and a few thousand calories tucked away, too,_ she thought) stomach growling. Even if she prevailed against all three, however, she knew how futile an attempt to escape would be. The sentries posted in the wall would likely have no compunction against shooting her if they saw her. Compliance, at least, seemed not to have the same near-inevitability of imminent death, so Yang gritted her teeth, and suppressed her tendency toward bulling through her obstacles, instead of looking for a way around them.

“Why have you brought me here?” she tried asking the guard, first in English, then in broken German. But his silence seemed to have nothing to do with the language barrier, given the Twinkle in his eye. He was enjoying Yang stalking around the room, a lion kept in a too-small cage, far too much to help her. Instead of trying to engage him further, and out of spite against his amusement, Yang sat down on the exam table in a huff, scanning the room for anything that might aid her eventual escape. She needed patience to wait for a viable opportunity, and that wouldn’t come easily. She needed to feel like she was making progress, always moving forward, towards her eventual goal, or she wouldn’t be able to ignore the temptation to try something rash.

Eventually, the waiting provided its reward. A man dressed in a blue tailcoat with yellow highlights and a bushy mustachio pushed his way through the door. “Good afternoon, Miss Xiao Long, _Kriminalsekretär_ Senft.” His voice was smooth and aristocratic, with a Berlin accent. “Thank you for coming, I’m Doctor Watts. I’ve been told that you might make an excellent candidate for a study of mine?”

Yang looked at the guard, who she now recognized as the one who’d questioned her about her mother. _Kriminalsekretär_ Seft began to explain himself. “Miss Xiao Long appears to have a hereditary profile of some interest. She has Irish and Chinese blood, but besides the shape of her eyes and a few other subtleties, she shares a number of physiological traits with our race. She may be a good candidate to test something that would be to risky to apply directly to our soldiers.”

Then the _Kriminalsekretär_ passed a folder over to the doctor. “I also believe that, with the right preparation, she could make an extremely valuable asset in combating organized crime in the Occupied Territories.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first wrote the boxing fight over a year ago, and got about 3 chapters in before I hit a wall. I'd begun rewriting this chapter when I published this version of the first chapter, and I had no real idea where the story would go. I had a bit of world-building, and some character backgrounds, but that's it. While working on this chapter, I think a reasonable plot has finally formed. I have a few good points coming in the future, but I am definitely still open to plot ideas if anyone wants to give them.
> 
> As you can see, the tone of this story is pretty dark. I'd hope that you knew what you've signed up for by clicking on a fic set, primarily, in Nazi-Occupied France (I will be updating the tags and content warnings to make sure you know what you're getting), but the speed with which it went down the rabbit hole took even me by surprise.
> 
> Don't forget to let me know what you think! It means the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With her future looking bleak, Can Yang survive the SS’s experiments and remain useful without abandoning her principles?
> 
> This chapter is a little more interstitial. It contains a time-skip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The downside to having writing be your hobby after spending all day at an intellectual job is that you are often so burnt out after a day of work to change gears pick up that pen to start putting ideas on the page. Thankfully, I had a nice ski trip scheduled, and while I wasn’t able to get the chapter out before I left, I think that taking the extra time was definitely a positive when it comes to the robustness of the plot.
> 
> Please forgive the ever expanding delays, enjoy the new chapter, and don’t forget to let me know what you think!

"Make that two studies, then," Doctor Watts replied. He turned back to Yang. "Please have a seat, dear." He gestured to the exam table. He didn't wait for her to follow his politely delivered order before turning to a cabinet, pulling several instruments and medical tools out, and carefully arranging them on a tray,

Yang, to her credit, only allowed herself a moment of rebellion before complying. Her attention had latched onto the Kriminalsekretär's words: "...test something that would be too risky to apply directly to our soldiers." She wasn't sure which she should be more terrified of. The "studies" deemed too risky for testing on their beloved "pure" race, or the "preparation" she'd need to become an asset. All she knew was that neither experience was likely to be pleasanter Despite her fear and her inherent resistance toward anything that came out of an enemy's mouth—and both the doctor and Gestapo agent were, most certainly, her enemies—Yang forced a polite mask to cover her face and pulled herself onto the exam table.

"I don't doubt the competency of your examiners in Paris," Doctor Watts said, and while he was talking to Yang, a pointed look made it clear that the comment was for Seft’s benefit. "But there are measurements that they have neither the equipment nor training to take." The doctor deftly grabbed Yang's hand and pricked er finger on a capillary tube, which wicked away the beading droplet of blood. Over almost before it started, he wiped down the remainder and bandaged the fingertip. He followed up with a more thorough drawing, using a syringe and frighteningly large needle that he wielded with the same brisk professionalism as before.

He placed both samples in a small ice-box sitting on the fur countertop, before turning back to face the inspector. "Would you prefer the experiments or the conditioning to take precedence, sir?"

"I will require her cooperativeness within the month, Doctor. What else you are able to accomplish during that span is your business. She will be returned to your sole custody when she has outlived her usefulness."

The doctor nodded his understanding and started to busy himself with his various tools and instruments, sometimes pausing to pluck a lock of Yang's hair, or swab the inside of her cheek or even focus deeply on some small patch of her body. His ministrations were rough, barely accounting for the fact that she was a living being; holding her arms, outstretched, for extended time, forcing her to hold her limbs at awkward angles. It was exhausting, but the burning in her shoulders was the only real similarity to her more athletic pursuits. This exhaustion bore far more resemblance to the previous night's questioning than anything purely physical.

To Yang, "conditioning" sounded very much like torture. As she let herself be poked, prodded, and moved around like a marionette, she contemplated her future. Escape seemed impossible, short of death. And while that was an option, Nazi-assisted suicide was at least as much of a defeat as letting them do whatever they had planned. Cooperation, for all of its dangers, held a slim hope that she could someday break free from their hold. She braced herself for a marathon of a fight—to keep herself so she might one day return it to freedom.

After ten more minutes of the doctor's puppeteer ring, he dismissed Seft. "You're still here, Seft? Don't you have a city to control, criminals to catch? Go back to Paris." Then, turning back to Yang, he stuck another needle in her arm. "This might hurt a bit," He warned, rather belatedly, after she hissed in pain. Before the door fully closed behind the Gestapo agent, her world was blanketed by dark.

* * *

 

###  **Four Months Later**

The bike rumbled underneath her in the dead of night. In peacetime, she would have been able to see the lights of Paris by now, a warm glow on the horizon, as she hurtled through the countryside. But curfews, brownouts, and petrol rations kept the sky cold and dark, with only twinkling pinpricks to light the way. And a 200 watt headlight salvaged from an anti-air emplacement. That too. Yang pushed the bike a little harder, gaining speed as the first few suburban villages slide past. After a long trip through Marseille, she'd followed The Branwen Gang's trail back around into the Capitol. She'd left fewer bodies than in Rennes, but it'd only be a few days before Raven got wind of her tail and went back underground before Yang could find her.

Instead of obsessing over what she'd do when she finally did come face-to-face with her birth mother, Yang let that comforting vibration fill her mind, tearing down the empty roadway. Time passed differently on the open road, the hours compressing into nothingness, but each moment frozen, encompassing lifetimes. Before long, or after hours, she found herself stopped in front of a checkpoint leading into the city. Something deep within her shuddered as she handed over her papers, decorated with several off- cut-looking seals. they hadn't taught her enough German to grasp the nuances, but they authorized her to do quite a bit without any real oversight, including moving Feely at any hour.

It took a call to a grumpy-and bleary-eyed-officer and a brief explanation that they were not cleared for an explanation, that even telling them as much was pushing it, before they would let her through. Dropping Hauptsturmführer Seft's name, and the fear it instilled, surely didn't hurt either.

Once past the checkpoint, and within city limits, she had to keep to much more sedate speeds. barely leaning into any of the corners as she wound her way through the knot of Parisian streets that led to her safehouse. She'd have to stash her bike here. It was far to easy to track-bright yellow and obviously scratch built- and would endanger her safehouse, which would anger the Hauptsturmführer in turn. And that would be irrecoverably bad.. She parked the bike in front of the building-to all outward appearances a near- abandoned tenement beginning to crumble from age and disuse-and emptied the under-seat storage capsule. She'd had to throw away most of the clothing she'd brought to Marseille. It was all either too blood soaked or torn up to be salvageable. That was going to be another pain point with soft, who couldn't understand what the problem with an SS. issued kit would be. It was getting rather expensive to replace her wardrobe every other week. He'd have her in the pits for a month if all this effort didn't result in getting to Raven this time.

With its load lightened, it was time to stow the bike. She'd only been able to steal enough petrol for a thirty percent mix, so its engine stunk to high heaven of moonshine. Nonetheless, she began the long process of levering it up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. He was very insistent that there be no sign that Yang l in there for watchers to find. He'd even sent a few watchers in the beginning to be sure that she take enough care to hide her existence. The only time she'd tried to turn on a light, she'd been provided with a stern reminder of the dangers of inviting his ire. She'd worked up a lather of sweat by the time the motorcycle was safely hidden away, the centerpiece of her living room. At least showers had been deemed a "necessary risk "and were allowable even in the safehouse.

Once she'd washed the sweat, moonshine stink, and motor oil away under a luxurious hot shower, she checked the clock she'd hung on the wall. If she'd timed everything right, she would be able to make it just in time. She changed into a set of clothes that she'd not told him about, riding leathers, blue as the night's sky. Making sure to remove the brass Knuckles from its pockets, Yang stole up the fire escape to the roof, before taking a running leap over a back alley and running across several buildings. When she was sufficiently far from her safehouse, she found another fire escape and made her way back to street level. From there, it was a short walk to her destination, but Yang's route was twice as long as a direct path through the heart of the Arrondissement. Her convoluted and circuitous sequence of turns had proved effective at losing even the most dogged of tails and she knew to always act as if she was being followed, even if she couldn't see the surveillors.

The meeting place was in the basement of a small church. Most of its congregation/ including its pastor, had evacuated in the early days of the war, before the occupation, making it as safe a spot as any other. As she entered, she tied a checkered cloth over her hair—now grown back into a stylish bob—and affixed the golden star over her breast. It wasn't really hers to wear—she'd liberated it from one who'd had no more need for it—but she had to bear its burden, just like Raven's. At the threshold to the mausoleum, Yang answered the guard's challenge, "To David, Goliath may fall."

"But a tank works better." With her correct response, the door opened, fully, to admit her, revealing their war-room. At the center, surrounded by many just like her—star-spangled and wearing head-coverings—was a map of the city and its environs. Every police precinct was carefully marked, as well as every Gestapo station they knew about and every place where they'd found a permanent station of Reich troops. Behind the map, at the head of its table the emblem was emblazoned on a banner hanging from the back wall. A white wolfs surrounded by a backdrop of red. with three bloody slashes over it all.

Not every chair was filled around the table, a few minutes before the meeting's start. Two would never be. those places reserved for their own purposes. One, their own "Elijah". A latecomer seeking hospitality. Different than a mundane recruit, an “Elijah" symbolized a divine intervention to some. None had yet graced this particular hearth, but it would be an ill omen to rule it out. The second chair was more absolute in its emptiness, remaining so as a memorial, honoring the deaths of so many of their fallen friends, family, and brothers and sisters in faith. Yang took one of the unreserved seats and relaxed while waiting for the stragglers to arrive.

Today, it seemed, their band was only missing one. For when he arrived, the atmosphere within the room charged. The oppressing humidity of the breaths of two-dozen people solidified, forcing their wandering attentions back to the present. In front of them stood the leader of this little cell, Taurus. Everyone used codenames to protect themselves and each other if any of them got arrested. That was especially true for Yang, who had to balance the needs of this little group of rebels with the demands the Hauptsturmführer placed on her without letting either group connect them. As always, Taurus had covered not only his head, but his face as well. The last time someone had suggested that said face-covering was a show of mistrust and cowardice since no-one else wore masks to the meetings, Adam had made a show of how "unafraid" he was, by personally raiding a Reich storeroom and returning with a cache of rifles and ammunition, as well as the severed, still dripping, head of one of the guardsmen.

They'd buried the head out back and vowed not to discuss the psychological implications of the mask again. Violence wasn't a stranger to their meetings, but its application was usually a little more calculated than the wanton destruction that followed their leader around if he felt slighted or threatened. When calmer, however, he was a brilliant strategist and had a demonstrated ability to plan for, arm, and armor this little guerrilla force. "Ladies and gentleman," He began, in English, once he'd reached the head of the map-table. "We have a chance to strike a serious blow to our Nazi oppressors..."

As far as Yang had experienced, Taurus had two opening speeches. One that stressed the importance of unity and faith and perseverance through hard times, which he gave whenever he didn't have an impending plan to strike at the enemy. And a second, this one, was for recruiting volunteers for his next mission—a supply raid, a hit on a junior officer who couldn't pay his gambling debts, or an opportunity to stop a prisoner or two—from being sent out to a Polish camp, she turned him out while he made the cookie-cutter pronouncements, waiting for either the particulars of the mission or an opportunity to divulge the news that she'd brought.

"...and if we stop the train, we'll be able to stop more than three hundred children from being sent to Birkenau." The room had become more focused as Taurus' speech had gone on. To hear him tell it, he'd gotten word of a mysterious train being fueled outside of the city and had gone on a series of high stakes spying missions to determine that it was headed for the worst of the death camps, filled with French food, supplies, and, most importantly, hundreds of Jewish kids. His girlfriend, Belladonna, had, most likely, actually done all the intelligence-gathering, but everyone was understandably excited about a clear opportunity to affect positive change.

Yang spoke into the buzzing void left when the description of the mission parameters tailed off. "I think my news has some bearing on this situation." Yang, or Dragon, as she was known here, always tried to bring a tidbit of information to each meeting. She had become known among them for her intelligence into SS inner workings, even if she sometimes deliberately misstated the facts she gathered or shared disinformation, to keep the SS from realizing it was she who was a mole. She always was as correct as possible when it came to the more critical reports, however.

"There recently was some upheaval in the politics of domestic police work," she explained, "Both the Gestapo and the Parisian police believe that the Branwen gang is ramping up their operation in and around the city. But opinions differ on what their immediate objective is. If they are planning on raiding the supply trains, as some higher-ups within the SS think, then this transport may be among the ones targeted. And if they suspect that, then the guard on the train could be a lot tougher than most."

"We won't have to worry overmuch about the particulars of how many guards they put on the train," said Taurus, and everyone believed his confident growl. "The train leaves Thursday at dawn, and we will be prepared."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, I’ve done a good job in this chapter of setting up the two main competing arcs in this story. We have the White Fang, primarily a stand-in for Jewish resistance groups from within France and the rest of German-occupied territories during the war, and the Branwen Gang, where hunting them is an assignment from Yang’s SS handler, the newly promoted _Hauptsturmführer_ Seft.
> 
> Raven’s involvement in the story hasn’t been fully ironed out, but as I envision it right now, her group will share some of the characteristics of the secular and Catholic French resistances to the Germans, while also having the criminal elements of some of the more unscrupulous of the profiteers in occupied Paris.
> 
> Another thing is about the Boxing element of the story. If you felt a little cheated that the first tag was about it, but the story had seemed to get away from it quickly, don’t worry too much, it will come back.
> 
> Notes on Historical Accuracy, etc.:
> 
>   * Yang had returned to Paris from Marseille, which is in the “Free” Vichy France. I’m not too sure how possible it was to travel between them, but it was intentional that it be a part of the story that she was pursuing Raven across the border.
>   * _Hauptsturmführer_ Seft was promoted from a junior Gestapo, _Kriminalsekretär_ rank to a SS rank that was two pay-grades higher. My reasoning for this was that, upon capturing Yang and providing her for experimentation, he joined the SS officially (as not all Gestapo agents were a part of that organization) and got a promotion as a result of the transfer. I also have him as a rising star within the Reich, so if the story spans enough time, the extra promotion may not be the only one we see.
> 


**Author's Note:**

> This is an ongoing story. I had a very particular scene in mind when I started working on this story, but we have a long way to go before then. But, bear in mind that this is a very in-progress plot. _So,_ if you like the premise and have an idea of what you want to see here, please provide any ideas of what you want to get included.


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